Islamic terrorism in Europe
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
"Deprived urban areas on the fringe of large metropolises in Belgium, France, Great Britain. Middle-class cities in Denmark in Germany, these very different areas have one thing in common. For 30 years, their names have been part of the cartography of a minority ideology in Islam: jihad. From early preachers to terrorists 100% European, this totalitarian ideology has spawned ever more deadly. Since 2001 150 attacks have struck the old continent, to which must be added countless victims in Muslim countries. Since the late 80s, a handful of ideologists from the Middle East settled in Europe and spread jihadist thought to follow in their footsteps is to retrace origins of a political project that European democracies have had difficulty to detect and understand."--incipit Djihad sur l'Europe (2023) "Despite this long history, many European states found themselves overwhelmed by the flow of foreign fighters and the wave of terrorism that swept Europe during the Syrian jihad. Some of this was related to the staggering scale of the foreign fighter flows. Almost 6,000 European Muslims traveled to fight in Syria, compared with around 700 between 1990 and 2010 to Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, and Iraq combined." --"Trump’s Syria withdrawal is a boon for ISIS — and a nightmare for Europe" Daniel L. BymanTuesday, October 15, 2019 [1] |
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Islamic terrorism in Europe has been carried out by Islamic State or Al-Qaeda operatives as well as Islamist lone wolves since the late 20th century.
In the early 2000s, most of the Islamic terrorist activity was linked to Al-Qaeda and the plots tended to involve groups carrying out co-ordinated bombings. The deadliest attacks of this period were the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which killed 193 civilians (the deadliest Islamist attack in Europe), and the 7 July 2005 London bombings, which killed 52.
There was a rise in Islamic terrorist activity in Europe after 2014. The years 2014–16 saw more people killed by Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe than all previous years combined, and the highest rate of attack plots per year. and many European states have had some involvement in the military intervention against it. A small number of plots involved people who entered or re-entered Europe as asylum seekers during the European migrant crisis, and some attackers had returned to Europe after fighting in the Syrian Civil War. The Jewish Museum of Belgium shooting in May 2014 was the first attack in Europe by a returnee from the Syrian war.
While most earlier Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe were carried out by groups and involved bombs, most attacks since 2014 have been carried out by individuals using guns, knives and vehicles. A notable exception is the Brussels cell, which carried out two of the deadliest attacks of the period.
The deadliest attacks of this period have been the November 2015 Paris attacks (130 killed), the July 2016 Nice truck attack (86 killed), the June 2016 Atatürk Airport attack (45 killed), the March 2016 Brussels bombings (32 killed), and the May 2017 Manchester Arena bombing (22 killed). These attacks and threats have led to major security operations and plans such as Opération Sentinelle in France, Operation Vigilant Guardian and the Brussels lockdown in Belgium, and Operation Temperer in the United Kingdom.
See also
- List of Islamist terrorist attacks
- Islam and violence
- List of terrorist incidents linked to ISIL
- Stabbing as a terrorist tactic
- Vehicle-ramming attack
- Foreign fighters in the Syrian and Iraqi Civil Wars
- Islamist radicalization in European prisons
